Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 is the Marilyn Monroe of classical music — a legendary, voluptuous, utterly sexy work. This glistening, sensuous music is so intensely romantic that it's doubtful even Hollywood could conceive of a more amorous piece. Indeed, in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, Tom Ewell attempts to seduce Monroe by playing (what else?) the Rach Two.
These days, the most convincing interpreter of All Things Rachmaninoff is Kirill Gerstein, a 31-year-old Russian-American virtuoso who performs the Second Piano Concerto this weekend with Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
Gerstein has been dazzling audiences with his Rachmaninoff for the better part of a decade. His specialty is the composer's fiendishly difficult Piano Concerto No. 3, a work he recently performed with the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Guerrero — who, by the way, recently became principal guest conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra's annual Miami (Fla.) Residency.
Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto has the reputation of being the most difficult piano work in the repertoire — it's the piece that supposedly drove David Helfgott over the emotional edge in the movie Shine. Yet Rachmaninoff, who was himself a towering virtuoso, considered his Second Piano Concerto to be more difficult. Gerstein believes Rachmaninoff had a point.
"The Rach Three is more taxing physically, because it has more notes," says Gerstein. "But the second concerto is more interpretively challenging and also more emotionally wrenching."
Gerstein, a slightly balding, boyish-looking virtuoso, is a singular phenomenon in the piano world, an artist who is equally adept in both classical music and jazz. Born in Voronezh, in Southern Russia, he began studying piano with his mother at age 3 and discovered jazz when he was 11.
The American jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton heard Gerstein play at a St. Petersburg jazz festival a few years later. That encounter led to an invitation for Gerstein to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Gerstein moved to Boston with his mother and, at age 14, became the youngest full-time student in Berklee's history.
After a couple of years, Gerstein began to feel oversaturated with jazz, so he switched back to classical and attended the Manhattan School of Music. He gained international recognition in 2001 when he won first prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv.
Gerstein was in the news again last year when he won the piano world's most lucrative and unusual prize — the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award. The quadrennial prize — the music world's equivalent of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants — offers an alternative to most hype-driven international piano competitions. Nominees are observed in performance over a period of several years, without being told they are candidates for the prize.
Gilmore recipients can spend $50,000 on whatever they wish. The remaining funds are to be spent furthering the pianist's career. Some winners spend the money on extended practicing sabbaticals, others buy new pianos.
So far, Gerstein has been using the money to commission new music. He's already obtained a piece from renowned British composer Oliver Knussen. In an attempt to reconnect with his jazz roots, Gerstein recently commissioned a piece from jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.
The one thing Gerstein probably won't spend the money on is a new piano. He already owns five pianos, so he's ruled out buying a new instrument for now. "At least I'm trying to resist that temptation," he says.
